Fox News host Tucker Carlson calls transgender rights ‘an issue for rich people’ in bizarre on-air rant
Tucker Carlson speaks onstage during Politicon 2018 at Los Angeles Convention Center on October 21, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Rich Polk/Getty)
Fox News host and multi-millionaire Tucker Carlson has claimed that caring about equality for transgender people is an issue for “rich people.”
In an on-air interview with anti-transgender writer Meghan Murphy, the right-wing anchor appeared to push the argument that giving discrimination protections to vulnerable trans people in unstable employment or insecure housing is actually an issue for the elite.
Multi-millionaire Tucker Carlson claims trans rights is ‘for rich people’.
In a clip shared by Media Matters, Murphy claims: “There are probably more important issues on the table than how somebody feels about their so-called gender. I mean, we’re talking about a tiny, tiny, tiny minority of the population who identifies as transgender… it’s a really strange thing to focus on.”
Carlson, who is reportedly paid $6 million a year, agreed: “It does seem like a boutique issue of particular concern to people from certain zip codes, income levels, education levels. I mean, it’s kind of an issue for rich people.”
Tucker Carlson on November 29, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
Murphy went on to claim that “this whole concept of transgenderism and gender identity was really invented within academia” and that “nobody in the general population really believes these ideas.”
The self-identified feminist writer has been banned from Twitter over anti-transgender hate speech. She has become popular with conservatives and Republicans who share her beliefs.
Fox News host has used anti-gay slurs before.
Carlson has previously raged at gay presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, claiming: “[Democrats] don’t just want to vote for this guy, they want to consume him like a hearty stew. Every last drop of Buttigieg. Yum.”
In March, clips resurfaced of Carlson’s old radio show in which he uses homophobic and racist slurs.
In the recordings, Carlson informed his co-host that he likes him “in a completely faggot way”. In other recordings he claimed that Muslims were “behaving like animals”, and that Iraq is a “crappy place” filled with “semi-literate primitive monkeys”.
Carlson did not apologise.
